Catnapped!

by Gareth P. Jones

  “Yes, I read that,” said Dirk. “Mandy must have been sneaking them across the river when the Kinghorns weren’t looking.”

  “So what was she eating?”

  “My guess is that she could reach far enough to pinch vegetables from the allotments on the other side.”

  “Then her blood hadn’t turned to gas at all?”

  “Exactly, otherwise when I bit into her tail I would have seen bubbles instead of liquid.”

  “So what would have happened if the police had hit her?”

  “Her blood would have infected the water. Bad for the fish but it wouldn’t have taken to the air as the Kinghorns planned.”

  “So we didn’t save London?” said Holly, trying not to sound too disappointed.

  “We saved much more than that. If the police had got their hands on that Limpworm’s body, humans would finally know about dragonkind. We would stop being the thing of myths and stories and become the thing of science and exploration. They would start hunting dragons with as much vigour as they did in the Middle Ages, only this time armed with sonar, radar, guns and missiles. It would have been the beginning of the war. Together we stopped that, not to mention saving a perfectly innocent Limpworm called Mandy.” Dirk sent a puff of smoke into the air in the shape of a Limpworm and they both watched it gradually lose its form and disappear into nothingness.

  “So,” said Dirk, “what’s this about an unconvincing film monster?”

  Holly explained about her encounter with the police, Ladbroke’s timely arrival and how they got Dirk back to the office in Ladbroke’s car.

  “You mean he knows about me?” said Dirk, alarmed.

  “Yes, but it’s all right. He’s one of the good guys. He understands that you need to remain secret.”

  “You’re sure he won’t say anything?”

  “He’s given me his word that he won’t. Do you want me to bring him up here?”

  “No,” said Dirk. “I’ll speak to him another time. Is he following you indefinitely?”

  “It’s his last day today,” said Holly.

  “Great,” replied Dirk. “Because this case isn’t over yet. We didn’t even get close to finding Vainclaw. Tomorrow I want to go back and check out that warehouse…”

  “You’ll have to go alone this time,” said Holly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m being sent away.”

  “Away? Where?”

  “To boarding school.”

  “Why?”

  “Dad’s wife hired a detective because she knew I was bunking off school. Ladbroke didn’t tell her what I’d really been doing but there was no getting away from the fact that I haven’t been at school.”

  “What kind of woman sends a private detective to follow her stepdaughter?”

  “She’s worried that I’m a liability to her career. She’s hoping to make the cabinet after the next election. She says she can’t risk the press finding out about her wayward stepdaughter.”

  “What did your dad say?”

  “He said we need to be supportive of her,” replied Holly. “Apparently he doesn’t have to be supportive of me, though.”

  “Will you be able to get out at all?”

  “It’ll be tricky. The school is really strict and has high security. Apparently there are loads of celebrities’ kids there, even the prime minister’s son.”

  “So when are you going?”

  “They’re taking me up today. Ladbroke helped me slip away to see you. I’m not even allowed to take Willow. I was hoping you might want to look after her.”

  Dirk picked up the cat and stroked her. She purred contentedly. “No problem,” he said, looking at the brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. She seemed older than when he had seen her for the first time only a couple of weeks ago. Taller, even.

  Outside, a horn beeped.

  Holly said, “I’d better go. Thanks for everything, Dirk.” She hugged him one more time and then pulled away and wiped her eyes.

  “Good luck,” he said. “Maybe it won’t be so bad, this new school.”

  Holly nodded. “I’ll email,” she said.

  “Send letters,” said Dirk. “It’s safer but be careful what you put in those letters. You never know who might read them,” Dirk said. Then he added, “Hey, kiddo. It’s been good having you around.”

  “We’ll still be friends, won’t we?”

  “Friends,” replied the red-backed, green-bellied urban-based Mountain Dragon. “Yeah, we’ll still be friends.”

  Turn the page to follow Dirk and Holly on their next investigation in…

  Holly stopped by the door and, for a fleeting moment, considered making a run for it there and then. The electronic whirring of a security camera brought her to her senses, its automated sensor detecting her movement. This was not the time. Remember the plan. Holly looked up at the lens, stuck her tongue out at it and continued down the corridor to the principal’s office.

  The escape would be tonight but it wasn’t going to be easy. William Scrivener School prided itself on being as inescapable as it was impenetrable. Every corridor was watched by state-of-the-art CCTV cameras, monitored around the clock by a private security service. The best time for an escape was at night when there were two guards on duty rather than three and it was easier to hide from the cameras. The problem with a night escape was the external doors, which were opened using coded wristbands. All pupils were issued with non-removable green wristbands but these were programmed only to open the doors during the day, unlike the teachers’ red wristbands that worked around the clock.

  Even if you got past the cameras, avoided being seen by the teachers, who patrolled the corridors, and somehow got through the door, you still had to make it across the school grounds, without being picked up by security (or smelled by the guard dogs) and find a way over, under or through the high wire fence that surrounded the school.

  Then you were free to begin the ten-mile walk through the large forest to the nearest village, the aptly named Little Hope.

  As the school of choice for the ridiculously rich and phenomenally famous, William Scrivener’s security was the most intense Holly had ever encountered, but getting out of school was what Holly did best.

  She arrived at the principal’s office and approached the desk where a large woman with carrot-red hair and blue eyeliner was painting her nails purple. Without looking up, she pressed a half-painted nail on the intercom button. “Holly Bigsby is here for your daily meeting, Principal Palmer,” she said, her voice rich with sarcasm.

  “Send her in, Angie,” replied the principal.

  Holly entered the dark wood office. In the twenty-seven days she had been at the school this was her twenty-eighth visit to the principal’s office, but it was the first time she had got herself sent there on purpose.

  “Good morning, Holly,” said the principal, adjusting his tie in the reflection of one of the many shiny awards that stood on the mantelpiece.

  “Hello, sir,” replied Holly, glancing at the desk where his red wristband lay. On her previous visits she had noticed that, unlike her wristband, the principal’s was removable and that he took it off on Fridays so that it didn’t clash with his navy blue suit.

  “What is it today then, disruptive behaviour or insolence?” he asked, a tanned hand neatening his hair.

  “Speaking out of turn, sir.”

  “Ah.” Principal Palmer nodded. “What happened?”

  “Miss Whittaker told us about When Petals Blossom being on the syllabus.”

  “Yes. Terrific news, isn’t it? Our stock has gone up three points.”

  Holly said nothing.

  “It’s had a lot of press coverage.” The principal grabbed a newspaper off a pile on his desk and read a review out. “Having already written her autobiography at the tender age of eleven, now pop’s most famous offspring, Petal Moses, will be studying it at school…”

  Holly edged nearer to the desk, keeping her eyes fixed on the principal.
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  “…after it was selected for the English curriculum.”

  Holly reached out towards the wristband.

  “Described by one critic as ‘a deeply insightful account of what it means to grow up in the full glare of the harsh media spotlight,’ the book will be studied by year seven students, including Petal herself.” The principal chuckled at this and looked up. Holly quickly lowered her hand.

  He smiled and continued. “‘Petal Moses is one of our most talented students and that’s saying something,’ said Larry Palmer, Principal of William Scrivener School.” He beamed at Holly and placed the paper back on his desk.

  Holly needed that wristband.

  “Could you read me another one?” she asked.

  Principal Palmer raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Yes, of course,” he said, picking up another paper. “Studying her own autobiography won’t be an unfair advantage for precocious Petal Moses…”

  Holly’s hand inched towards the wristband once more.

  “…because most critics agree that spoilt pop brat Petal didn’t actually write it…”

  The Principal slammed the paper down and Holly whipped her hand away again. “Yes, well, there’s always some degree of negativity from the cynics,” he said. “Petal’s your roommate, isn’t she? Aren’t you pleased for her?”

  Holly scowled. Petal Moses was pleased enough for herself. To say that Petal got everything she wanted was an understatement. She got much more than that. If she wanted a new party dress, she was flown out by private helicopter to an exclusive department store, where a personal shopper awaited. If she liked a new pop band, they would be brought to the school for a private performance, which only she and her friends could attend. Even some of the teachers pandered to her. Miss Whittaker, their English teacher, had been beside herself when she announced that they would be studying her book, and Petal’s fawning friends had burst into applause.

  “What happened when Miss Whittaker told you?” asked the principal.

  “I said that I thought the title was stupid because petals don’t blossom. I said that flowers blossom. Petals just fall off and die.”

  “I see, and you said this in front of the whole class, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, Holly, you really must try to make an effort to fit in. William Scrivener is the finest school in the country. Your parents were very lucky to get you in at all. And you should feel honoured to be sharing a room with a student as special as Petal.”

  “Special?” said Holly. “There’s nothing special about her!”

  Principal Palmer sighed. “I know that your mother is important too. MPs are important people, even backbenchers.”

  “She’s my stepmum and she’s not a backbencher. She works in the Ministry of Defence now,” Holly interrupted. “Dad says she might make the cabinet this year.”

  “Very impressive, I’m sure,” he replied. “But Petal’s mother is known all round the world.” The principal clapped his hands together and, as though it was the highest compliment anyone could ever be paid, added, “And she’s American.”

  “Well, I hate her and I hate this stupid school,” Holly shouted, lashing out and knocking the pile of newspapers to the floor.

  “Holly Bigsby!” barked the principal, diving to pick them up.

  Holly seized the opportunity, snatched the wristband and thrust it into her pocket.

  The principal placed the papers back on to the table, careful not to crease them.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he said sternly, “but if you think you can get excluded from this school as you did with your previous schools, you can think again. Your parents have paid a lot of money to keep you here.”

  This was Holly’s sixth school. She was taken out of her last one after only one term when her dad’s wife had decided to send her away. A general election had been called and she didn’t want Holly’s bad behaviour attracting any negative press attention. Dad hadn’t phoned since she’d been there but she guessed he was busy with the campaign.

  “Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” said Holly, her voice full of fake remorse.

  He smiled kindly and tilted his head. “You know, this school can open many doors in life but only if you let it. Why don’t you make some friends?”

  Holly didn’t want any of these people as friends. They were all the same – spoiled rich kids who rode their ponies on Saturdays and argued over who lived in the biggest house or whose parents were the most famous.

  The only real friend she had made was Little Willow, but she didn’t want to admit this because Little Willow was a mouse. Holly had found her under the bed when she first arrived in her dorm and named her after her cat Willow, who she had left behind with a private detective she knew, Dirk Dilly.

  She missed Willow.

  She missed Dirk too. She had written to him twice a week since being at the school but he hadn’t replied. She would have phoned but Petal had told her that all outgoing calls were recorded because of the school’s fear that students might sell stories on each other to the press. Holly couldn’t risk them finding out about Dirk. He wasn’t just a friend. He wasn’t just a private detective. Dirk Dilly was a real, genuine, fire-breathing dragon.

  If the commuters had taken a moment to stop, they might have seen two yellow lights flicker on the sloping roof of the bank opposite the station. If they had looked up, they might have noticed that the lights were actually two eyes and that the flicker was, in fact, a blink. If they had peered very carefully, they would have realized that the eyes belonged to the dragon-shaped lump perfectly camouflaged against the rooftop.

  But this was Moorgate, the business district of London, and it was a grey, rainy Friday morning. No one stopped, or looked up, or paid the slightest bit of attention to the dragon watching them. Instead, they traipsed out of the tube station, eyes on the ground, hurrying to get out of the drizzle into their warm, dry offices, where they could sit down, make a cup of coffee and while away the day staring at their computer screens, counting the hours until they could go home again.

  Dirk Dilly’s yellow eyes focused on a man in a grey suit, struggling to open an umbrella without dropping his briefcase. A gust of wind caught the umbrella, blowing it inside out. The man cursed and threw it in a bin. The drizzle became rain and landed on the hairless top of his head, running down to the messy clumps of grey hair that sprouted around his ears and at the top of his neck.

  He took a right turn down a narrow lane and Dirk sprang into action, his back reverting to its usual red as he flew, spreading his wings and gliding down to another roof. He had to be careful when flying in this part of the city, where bored workers might easily glance down from their tall office blocks and see him.

  The consequences of being seen were unthinkable, which was why most dragons avoided cities, preferring to hide in more remote corners of the globe – the bottom of the deepest oceans, the top of the highest mountains, or far down in the belly of the earth itself.

  Many years ago, the Dragon Council realized that it would be impossible to share the world with the race of strange straight-backed mammals that called itself mankind. A conference was called high in the Himalayas, where all of dragonkind voted on whether to annihilate humans before they created weapons so powerful as to make them impossible to destroy, or whether to go into hiding until mankind went the way of the dinosaurs. The dragons in favour of fighting rose into the air, while those who wanted to hide stayed on the ground, and it was decided by majority vote that mankind would be allowed to run its course. Attacking humans, being seen by a human or allowing a human to find any evidence of dragon existence were all made punishable by banishment to the earth’s Inner Core.

  But Dirk was quick and experienced and, like all Mountain Dragons, whenever he was at rest he could blend his skin to match the surface beneath him. It was a useful skill in this busy part of the city. Dirk’s work had brought him here many times before. London was full of corruption and deception and Dirk h
ad seen it all.

  The man turned down an alleyway. Dirk jumped again, grabbed on to a flagpole that stuck out of the side of a building and swung around it twice, catapulting himself into the air and down on to the next building where he stopped dead. The alleyway led to another road, where the man entered a large glass-fronted building. He greeted the security guard and took the lift to the sixth floor, where he hung up his coat and settled down at his desk.

  Dirk settled too, blending with the office roof across the road from the professor’s, and preparing for another dull day’s detective work. This wasn’t the most exciting case in the world but business had been quiet since his last big job, when he had been hired to find a missing cat in South London and ended up stopping a band of rebel dragons, known as the Kinghorns, from destroying mankind. He had also found the cat.

  Since then, he had looked out for any dragons in the human world or any signs of what their mysterious leader, Vainclaw Grandin, might be planning next, but hunting Kinghorns wasn’t going to pay the rent and he was getting tired of hiding from Mrs Klingerflim, his landlady.

  He had received the call five days ago. Dirk conducted all his business over the phone.

  “The Dragon Detective Agency,” he had said, “Dirk Dilly speaking.”

  “Oh, hello, yes, I need your help,” a female voice had said nervously.

  “What can I do for you, madam?” he asked, his feet on the desk, watching Willow jumping up, trying to catch the smoke mice he had been blowing, looking perplexed each time one vanished beneath her paw. Never learns. Stupid animal, thought Dirk, stroking her with his tail and wondering why Holly still hadn’t been in contact. Maybe she was enjoying her new school and had made some human friends for a change.

  “My husband has been acting suspiciously,” said the woman. “I know his work is important to him but he’s become increasingly secretive, he gets strange phone calls and comes home and locks himself in his study every night.” She sounded tearful. “I feel like I’m losing him.”